Love is patient and kind; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own was; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Sometimes the devotional camped out on one section for a few days, and this appeared to be one of those times. The next day was a continuation of the love verses from First Corinthians. I thought God was unnecessarily flogging me with this love thing, when clearly I had tried very hard the day before to be patient and kind. Had I not made repeated remarks that I wanted to include Dale in our team? Had I not gotten him a job? Had I not not punched him in the face when I would have been justified in doing so?
It made me irritable and resentful, but at God this time, and not Dale. Although it was Dale’s fault, too, because he was the one who was getting me in trouble with God.
See? I’m, like, six years old.
Anyway, I managed a smile for Dale when he showed up on my front deck once again. Inside I was thinking (resentfully as hell, to be honest,) See, God. I am patient and kind. So there.
“Ready for day two?” I asked cheerfully. I didn’t even hesitate to put Stump into the back seat. I patted her cheerfully on the head and slammed the door. By the time I got into the driver’s seat, she was grunting and trying to shove her way between the seats, but her substantial width made it difficult.
Fairly confident that she wouldn’t get so stuck that I couldn’t free her, I left her to it while we drove to Flo’s Bow Wow Barbers.
“So, how’d it go at the domino hall?” I asked Dale.
He shook his head. “Not much to tell. Brother Parker is gone to a conference all week. Won’t be back in town until Saturday.”
I looked at him. “So...you got nothing?”
“Nada,” he confirmed.
Ha! I thought. You got nothing and Viv and I talked to the girlfriend!
Wow, came a divinely sarcastic voice in my head. How patient and kind of you.
I wasn’t sure if that was God talking to me or my own conscience, but I was really annoyed with both of them.
I felt a soft thud to my elbow and looked down to see Stump shoving herself, repeatedly and without any noticeable success, through the seats. Like a Q-Tip battering ram.
“Good grief,” I said, reaching back an arm to scoop her butt toward me. She groaned and flailed with her back feet, then stumbled and slid against the emergency brake, but between the two of us we got her into my lap. “This is not safe,” I told her. “If we have an accident, you’re going to become my airbag. You get that, right?”
“Umm, I don’t think she really has the critical thinking skills to understand that, no,” Dale said with a laugh and a look at me like I was an idiot. “Plus, she can’t actually understand what you’re saying. People think dogs can learn language, but they actually just learn to associate certain sounds with certain outcomes. Like they know when you say, ‘go’ because you make that sound and then you get in the car. But they don’t learn actual language skills.”
“Ummm, I know, I was just...” I bit back a sigh and shifted as Stump tried to turn circles in my lap. Those sounded like language skills to me. “So, you got nothing, huh?”
Viv was waiting for us again when we got off work. Dale and I had both talked to her on the phone, so I sat silently and tried not to look smug when we compared notes and all the information we’d gained so far had come from Viv and me – mostly me. It was hard. Dale had criticized my customer service skills, my scissoring work, and had said one of my favorite customers, a tiny gray poodle who just happened to be somewhat tightly wound, acted like she needed doggie psych meds. I wasn’t feeling particularly loving toward him at the moment, but I was determined to paste a smile on my face and get on with it. I didn’t want to be stuck back in First Corinthian land tomorrow.
“So, what’s next,” I said from the backseat. “The preacher guy is still out of town. Who else is on our list of hate groups?”
“I was watching TV last night and realized we missed the obvious. The first thing Columbo does is go see the last person to see the victim alive.”
“That would be, Marky, right?”
“Hey, I know that guy,” Dale said. “Did I tell you that?”
“Yes,” Viv said.
“No,” I said. I looked at Viv. “You were discussing the case without me?”
“Oh yeah,” Dale said. “We talked all about it last night after bingo.”
I glared at them both. Bingo?! I’d gone home alone to do laundry and read up on CJ Hardin, and they’d been out playing bingo? I hated bingo, but still!
“You can’t be talking about the case without me, Viv. I’m your partner.”
Viv stuck her chin out, looking quite satisfied with herself. “Um-hmm. Look who’s talking about partnerships now. Weren’t you the one who’s all, ‘But we’re not real detectives, Viv. You’re just a bored old lady and I’m just a fat girl trying to find my dreams.’”
My mouth hung open. “Umm, I never once said that.” Not out loud, anyway, I thought. “The point is, we’re in this together, whether we’re real detectives or not. And if you’re going to talk about the case, I need to be in on it. All information has to be shared equally.”
Dale nodded emphatically. “Only fair.”
I briefly indulged in the vision of opening his car door and watching him get sucked out and tumble down the highway behind us.
Instead, I said, “How do you know him?”
“We worked together at this telemarketing place over off Avenue J. He might still work there.”
“How long ago was that?”
Dale leaned his head back against the seat and thought. “Let’s see, was that right before the job with the city? No, I worked at that convenience store out by The Strip before the city job. So the telemarketer job was three jobs ago. So...three weeks ago? Yeah, about three weeks ago.”
“Wow, a job a week,” Viv said. “You sure go through ‘em.”
Dale nodded, looking tired. “Tell me.”
It turned out that Dale didn’t know much about the guy, just that he smoked and he had a weird laugh, and he was from somewhere up north. I had spent my life in West Texas, however, so I knew ‘up north’ could mean anything north of Oklahoma City, and/or encompassing the entire east coast down to South Carolina.
The telemarketing place was in an old office building, and a group of people stood around on the sidewalk in a haze of blue cigarette smoke.
Dale nodded. “Yep, this is where they all hung out on smoke breaks. If he still works here, he’ll be out here.”
It didn’t appear that he was, though. It also didn’t appear that anyone in the group was particularly glad to see Dale, despite his enthusiastic wave and cheerful “Hey, losers!” In fact, I thought I heard one girl in a Captain America t-shirt say, “Oh, hell. What’s he doing back?”
Dale told them we were looking for that guy Marky that was in the news.
“I knew you’d be looking for him, man,” said a guy with a biohazard tattoo on his shoulder. He gave Dale a knowing sneer.
Dale instantly bowed up and glared. “You’re looking for him, you freak.”
“Um, actually we are looking for him,” Viv said, stepping in front of Dale. “Does he still work here?”
“Nah,” said the girl in the Captain America shirt. “He didn’t show up one day.”
“Do any of you know where we can find him?” I asked. “We need to speak to him.”
“Tiffany in the office might know,” Biohazard said. “She keeps all the HR stuff. She probably has an address for him.”
We took a few narrow hallways lined with moldy smelling orange carpet to an office where a girl in a pony tail and baggy knit pants was filing. Unlike the crowd outside, she seemed genuinely glad to see Dale. She also had the kind of rolled bangs that I had burned my forehead with the curling iron to get. In sixth grade.
“Hi there, Tiffarooni,” Dale said with a wave.
On closer look, it appeared that Tiffany was actually a bit past middle-aged, with graying brown hair and fairly significant bags under her eyes. The look on her face when she saw Dale, however, was pure preteen girl. “Are you back, then? Did Hal say you could come back?” She looked pitifully hopeful.
“Are you kidding? He said he didn’t even want me up here to pick up my last check, that he’d mail it to me and for me to never darken this door again.”
Viv and I looked at each other, then looked around uneasily. “You didn’t mention that part,” I said.
Dale shrugged. “What’s he going to do, call the cops?”
“Oh yeah!” Tiffany said, as if he’d just reminded her. “That’s what I’m supposed to do if you show up. Call the cops.”
“Sure thing,” Dale said breezily. “But first can you get me an address on that guy Marky that worked here? The one with the Mohawk? I need to talk to him.”
“Oh, I’m not supposed to give out the addresses from the files,” she said. “It’s a violation of policy.”
“It’s okay, we just want the one and we’re his friends,” Viv said. “It’s not like we’re going to sell his address to a bunch of junk mail companies or something.”
“Oh good, I hate getting junk mail. Except for the ones that sell plants. Or dishes. Or knit pants. It’s hard to find good knit pants these days, you know.” She chatted cheerfully as she dug through the files. “Okay, here it is.”
Dale looked over her shoulder and scribbled the address and phone number on the palm of his hand. Tiffany looked at him worshipfully.
He tossed her pen on her desk and gestured that she could put the file away. “Thanks, Tiffer. You’re a big help.”
“You know, I didn’t realize you two were friends. One time he was in here talking about how you were the most full of, well, poop...person he’d ever met. I guess he meant that in a nice way though.”
“Oh yeah, we’re good enough friends so we can joke like that with each other. Of course, we’re not that good of friends.” He raised his eyebrows knowingly.
“Oh yeah,” Tiff said and giggled. But then she looked kind of confused.
“That’s all we need. If Hal ever changes his mind maybe I can come back to work here.”
“That would be great,” Tiffany said breathlessly. “He won’t though. He never changes his mind.”
As we headed for the door, she said, “Do you think I should go ahead and call the police now? I mean, since you’re leaving it seems kind of a waste.”
“Whatever you think,” Viv said. “If they want to talk to us you can just tell them we were driving a blue Camry. That way they can find us.”
“Oh, good.” Tiffany nodded enthusiastically. “That will be helpful.”
As we drove away, Viv listed all the ways Tiffany seemed to be, in her words, as dumb as a box of rocks. “She didn’t hesitate at all to give us this guy’s address. She really believed you guys were friends after the guy said you were full of poop.”
She seemed genuinely interested in Dale, I added silently.
We were two blocks from the address Dale had written on his hand when a patrolman flashed his lights behind Viv.
“Now what?” she asked.
It could be that Tiffany had actually managed to pull off calling the cops and putting them on our tail, but it was more likely that Viv had been spotted during one of the many, many traffic violations she routinely committed. After being her friend for a while now, I’d gotten used to buckling myself in as tightly as I could and using our ride time as prayer time.
Viv pulled into a Burger King parking lot and slammed the Cadillac into park, the lines around her mouth working as she pursed her lips. She appeared to be running through her entire vocabulary of curse words, but she didn’t say them out loud.
The officer asked for her license and insurance, which Viv practically tossed at him. “What’s this all about?”
“Just wait here a minute, ma’am,” he said.
We waited in silence for the officer to run her license, which seemed to take an inordinately long time. But then a car pulled up behind the patrolman and everything became clear.
“You have to be kidding me,” I said as I realized what was happening.
Bobby Sloan sauntered up and leaned in Viv’s window. “Forget it,” he said shortly.
“Forget what?” Viv asked innocently.
“I know what you’re up to, I know where you’re going, and I am telling you, drop it right now.”
“Why, where are we supposed to be going, Detective Sloan?” She and Bobby had a mutual detest thing going. It had started when Bobby had the nerve to question Viv’s detective abilities when we worked our first case, which ignited this whole competition thing in her mind. All of us – including Bobby, if he was honest – had our money on Viv. But still, he gave it his very best shot.
“You’re going to see CJ Hardin’s partner over in the Live Oaks Apartments,” Bobby said.
“Ha!” Dale chimed in, like the dolt he was. “Shows how much you know. He lives at Red Oak Apartments.”
Viv and I both gave him withering looks, which he completely missed.
“How did you even know where we were?” Viv demanded. “I told that dimwit to say we were driving a blue Camry.”
“She did, but some guy with a biohazard tattoo gave us different information. He even had your license plate.” Bobby grinned a brilliant crooked grin at me.
There had been a period of several years in my life when being the recipient of that grin would have sent me into a dead faint. I congratulated myself on being practically over Bobby Sloan – all I felt was weak in the knees, dizzy and dry-mouthed.
The patrolman tapped on Dale’s window and motioned for him to get out of the car. They walked back behind the cruiser. I turned in my seat and watched, but they had their heads bent together and I couldn’t hear anything.
An entirely too familiar fear bubbled in my gut. I had spent too much of my life just like this, pulled over to the side of the road and telling lies like, “No, officer, I have not had anything to drink. I don’t know where that stuff came from. Of course I didn’t...”
I had not gone through over a year of AA meetings, days of wanting a drink so bad it was all I could think about, and shelling out almost half my salary in fines just to feel like this again. I pushed on the fear and tried to turn it into anger.
I set my jaw and leaned forward to glare at Bobby standing beside Viv’s door. “This is police harassment.”
“Am I going to have to put some kind of restraining order on you two? I can do that, if I need to.”
I hopped out of the back seat, cradling Stump to me. Stump stuck her nose in the air and sniffed at the flame-broiled Whopper scent.
“That would be a clear abuse of your power,” I said, my own mouth tight. “I would waste no time getting Trisha to do a whole exposé thing on you. She would love that.” When we were in sixth grade and Bobby was a senior back at Idalou High School, he’d called Trisha “Wide Load” in front of a bunch of upperclassmen, and she’d cried for three days. I was fairly certain she would still welcome the opportunity to get revenge.
“Salem, the last time you two got involved in a murder, you nearly ended up murdered yourself. You did end up in the hospital, both of you. Face it. You two are not cut out for real crime fighting.”
“We are not crime fighting,” Viv said, her wobbly old-lady chin sticking out. “We are concerned citizens, going to comfort the bereaved. You have no right to deter us from that. No right at all.” She made a motion for me to get back into the car, and turned the key. “Now if we are quite through here...”
She hit the button to raise her window.
Bobby reached in and pushed the button to lower it. He looked straight at me. “I’m not kidding, now. This one wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t a mistake. Somebody wanted this guy dead and he wanted him to suffer. This isn’t playtime. Stay away.”
He walked back to the patrolman. I stood there, furious at him for being so nosy, so bossy, and so freaking hot. I had almost completely made up my mind to no longer find him attractive.
I realized Stump was digging her hind feet into my back, trying to get down.
She might be trying to get at the Whoppers, but then again, she might need to go to the bathroom. I took her over to a grassy area and put her down.
Dale went back to the car and Bobby stood talking to the patrolman. I could hear their voices but not make out the words because of the traffic noise.
Stump sniffed around the ground, and I kept my eyes on her while I edged toward Bobby, straining to hear. I could make out a couple of words. I edged closer.
A light must have turned because traffic stopped, and I was able to pick out what Bobby and the patrolman were saying.
“You’re sure he didn’t say anything about PDDL?” Bobby was asking.
Something about the tone of his voice didn’t sit well with me. Concern, beyond just his normal don’t-make-a-mess-I’ll-have-to-clean-up tone. PDDL, is that what he’d said? I tried to remember if that had been one of the groups on Tri-Patrice’s list.
I did not care for the way his tone made a cold ball of dread form in my stomach. I didn’t care for it at all.
“Nah,” the patrolman was saying. “Just that church outside of town where they handle the snakes, and he said they were going to talk to the partner.”
“We already questioned him. I doubt they’re going to get much from him.” He turned and noticed me. “Hey, that dog’s supposed to be on a leash, you know.”
I glared at him.
He grinned.
I wanted to flip him off so much it was painful. I let Stump finish peeing, then bent to pick her up. I narrowed my eyes at him, but all he did was grin and look hot. Jerk. Was he concerned for my welfare or not?
I got back in the car, but I couldn’t help but think of what Bobby said. I was familiar with Bobby’s different faces, and that one had been fairly “don’t-mess-with-me.”
Viv took off, and Dale and I sat back in our seats. The car was silent as we made our way down the street. I figured the other two were thinking what I was thinking – maybe we should stay away from this one.
I waited for one of them to say something, but when neither did, I figured I could be the one to say it. “Man,” I said. “That ‘they wanted him to suffer’ was kind of bad.”
Dale nodded. “Yeah.” He sounded stunned.
“It did sound bad,” Viv said. Then she pressed on the gas. “We need to get to this Marky guy and find out what happened. He’ll probably know all the details.”
“Yeah,” Dale said, leaning forward in his seat. “Take a right up here.”
I sat back in my seat and scowled. I did not say, “Guys, maybe we should rethink our involvement in this.” nor did I say, “Let’s explore some alternatives.” Nope, because that would be uncool.
I had hoped when I got sober that I would turn out to be one of those people who always made sensible decisions and didn’t sit in backseats wondering what kind of terrible mess they’d just gotten themselves into. Turns out the ridiculous self-destructive decisions I had made in my life couldn’t all be laid at the door of drink.
Red Oak Apartments were like every other apartment building in town – a thin strip of parking lot surrounding a sea of buildings. These were painted a greenish taupe color, and sported balconies and patios for each unit.
Viv parked the Caddy and turned to look at Dale. “Now listen. It might become necessary for me to do a little embellishing of the truth in there, in order to get the whole story out of the guy. Can you go with that?”
Dale gave a derisive snort. “Listen, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter. I bet I can embellish better than you.”
I doubted that. I’d seen Viv make up perfectly plausible BS at the drop of a hat. I knew her as well as anyone did, and she had the ability to convince me even when I knew for a fact she was lying.
We all piled out of the car, following Dale to a ground-floor unit. In front of the door was a welcome mat with a Siamese cat on it. Dale rapped on the door.
A short woman with wildly curly hair and spotty glasses on the end of her nose opened the door. She gave us a slack-jawed, mildly alarmed look. “Yes?”
“We’re from the Discreet Investigations Detective Agency,” Viv announced briskly. She folded her hands in front of her and stepped wide in what I privately called her Secret Service look. “We’re here to see Marky Petrelli. Is he in?”
Dale mimicked Viv’s stance, and the woman looked a bit more alarmed. “I don’t know.” She put a nervous hand to her throat. “I really couldn’t say.”
“Can’t, or won’t?” Dale asked. He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head.
I rolled my eyes, shifted Stump to my other hip and stepped slightly in front of him. “Forgive us for sounding brusque,” I said. I gave her the smile I gave to my grooming customers when I had to tell them their precious doggie was a matted-haired mess that would have to be shaved bald. “We just need to ask him a couple of questions. He’s not in any trouble or anything. Do you know when he will be in?”
She nodded her head slowly. “I really don’t know.”
Neither Viv, Dale or I were quite sure what to say next. I didn’t think she was covering up for him, but she sure wasn’t a font of information.
“What time does he normally get in?” I asked. “Is he at work or something?”
She swallowed hard and peered at me through the spots on her glasses. “He could be, I suppose. Where does he work?”
I wrinkled my forehead. “Well, I don’t know. Don’t you know?”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t even know who he is.”
We all stood dumbstruck for a couple of seconds, and then I grabbed Dale’s hand. The ink was smeared, but I could make it out.
“You idiot,” I said. “This is apartment 3F. We need 3B.”
“That’s around the back,” the short woman said.
“Yes, well,” Viv said. She nodded at the woman and stepped back. “Let us know if you need anything, then.”
We hot-footed it back down the sidewalk. I didn’t know about the other two, but I felt like an idiot.
“That was a pretty good warm-up, at least,” Dale said. “Now we’re more prepared for the real thing.”
We found 3B, and once again Dale rapped on the door, then he and Viv resumed the stance.
Marky himself opened the door, and this made my heart pound and I jumped a little. I guess we’d failed so many times I wasn’t emotionally prepared for success. Stump grunted and squirmed, looking up at me with an annoyed expression.
Viv had no trouble going for it, though. “We are from the Discreet Investigations Detective Agency. We’re working on behalf of a party who is very concerned about the death of CJ Hardin.”
He raised an eyebrow and took us all in. His eyes lingered on Stump for a second. “You’re detectives,” he said, his tone flat.
Viv raised her chin and thinned her lips. She met Marky’s gaze with a steely one of her own. “Our past clients include families of both kidnap and murder victims, and we have a 100 percent success rate. Our client on this case expects no less from us, and I expect to give them no less.”
I wanted to give Dale an I-told-you-so look but I didn’t dare. Everything Viv had just said was true. The parts that she left out – that our kidnap victim was a Maltese dog, and that it wasn’t that hard to have a 100 percent success rate when we’d only had two actual cases – weren’t especially important.
“And who is your client now?” Marky asked.
“We’re not at liberty to divulge that, but please rest assured that it is someone who only wants to see the truth be told and the guilty party – or parties – brought to justice. As I’m sure you’re aware, there are a lot of factors in this case that are detracting from what should be the main priority, and that’s bringing Dr. Hardin’s killers to justice.”
He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t lose that you’ve-gotta-be-kidding-me expression, either.
“Do you have time to answer a few questions? We’re establishing a timeline of Dr. Hardin’s last few days.”
He shook his head. “I’ve already talked to the police and told them everything.”
“Look, Jack,” Dale said. “Don’t you want his killer to be found?”
Viv put a hand up to motion Dale to step back. “I’m sure you’ve been very cooperative with the police.” She lowered her voice and stepped close to him. “I’m sure you’ve also noticed, they’re not exactly running with the information you’ve given them, either. You and I both know the police say one thing and then do another.”
Marky lost the derisive half-smile.
“Now, maybe they’re interested in finding Dr. Hardin’s killer, and maybe they’re thinking this is just some prank that got out of hand.” She shrugged. “You know, he’s just some gay guy. It’s not like an important member of society got killed, right? Maybe he was looking at somebody the wrong way. Maybe he went someplace he had no business going. Maybe, if they dig too deep, they’ll find a guilty party they don’t want to be brought to justice. Somebody whose pristine reputation could be tarnished by this scandal.” She stepped back and shrugged again. “There are all kinds of reasons the police aren’t motivated to pursue leads as thoroughly as they could.”
I cocked my head at her. I knew a few people on the Lubbock PD – Bobby Sloan especially – and there was no way he would not do a thorough investigation. He wasn’t like that. I was almost 100 percent positive.
I kept quiet, though, because if I had learned anything, it was that Viv usually had a plan. Sometimes it was a ridiculous plan that went up in flames, but she had a plan.
Marky studied her a moment, then stepped back and motioned for us to come in.
The sparse living room held a sofa, one chair and a small coffee table. Dale, Viv and I sat on the sofa and let Marky take the chair. Stump curled up in my lap and almost immediately fell asleep.
Marky’s Mohawk was gone, I noticed. I supposed it took a bit of effort and hair gel to get it to stand up like it had the morning of the Hope for Home 5K.
Viv got right down to business.
“Tell me about your relationship with CJ Hardin.”
“We were lovers.” Marky sat and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked at each of us in turn, his chin tilted. I got ready to stomp on Dale’s foot, but all he did was shudder a little and look at the ceiling.
“Where did you meet?”
“At a Hope for Home meeting back in April.” He leaned back and looked at the floor in front of his chair. “He gave a presentation about the work the organization had done over the previous year and his goals for the next year. I had been involved in a Friends of Joshua group back in my home town, so I wanted to help out here. We talked after the meeting and we just...hit it off.” He swallowed hard and cleared his throat.
“And you began seeing each other immediately?”
“Basically. We met for coffee a couple of times, before we...” He broke off and gave Dale a hesitant look. “He was still engaged to Desiree, and we agreed that it wouldn’t be right to take the friendship any further without ending that first.” He shrugged. “What can I say? He was a very honorable guy. I loved that about him, even though it kind of made me crazy, too.”
“Do you know if he had ever been in a relationship with a man before?”
Dale gave her a dark look. “I fail to see how that’s pertinent.”
“If he was in a relationship that ended in contention, but was unknown to the people closest to him, there could be possible suspects the police will never know about. If you were close –”
“We were close.” Marky’s eyes blazed.
“Then he might have felt a freedom with you that he wouldn’t have felt with anyone else. He might have trusted you with information he could not share with anyone else.”
Marky was silent for a moment. “I know I was not his first gay partner. I also know that he said he’d never shared the same kind of relationship with anyone that he had with me. He didn’t give me names or details, but from the way he spoke, there was no one important before me. No one worth mentioning specifically.”
Stump snored loudly.
Everyone in the room was suddenly looking at her. I shrugged apologetically. “She’s a delicate flower,” I said.
Marky blinked, then he smothered a smile. “She’s cute,” he said.
Well, there you go, I thought. Clearly not a murderer.
Viv gave me and Stump an irritated look, then turned back to Marky. “He never said anything about being fearful of anyone from his past?”
Marky shook his head. “Look, I don’t know this for sure, this is just a hunch. But I think as long as CJ was close to home, anywhere near all the people who knew him, knew his family, he played the role he needed to play. I think he went far, far from home to do anything that could...attract attention.”
“What do you mean? Like vacations, conferences or something like that?”
Marky shrugged. “Sure. Like I said, I don’t have any specific information, but to be perfectly honest, it doesn’t matter, does it? I mean, there’s no way this is related to some fling CJ had while he was at a medical convention in Costa Rica or something. This past week was a nightmare for him. One day he was on top of the world, doing work he believed in and was passionate about, the next day he was getting death threats and seriously questioning his ability to continue practicing medicine. And then he’s dead. For someone to show up from months ago, right in the middle of all this...” He raked a hand through his hair. “That’s a bit too coincidental, don’t you think?”
Viv and I looked at each other, and she gave the tiniest shrug. She took a breath and leaned forward.
“This past week has been very busy, to say the least.” Viv said. “How was Dr. Hardin’s demeanor throughout the week?”
“It started out good enough. He was a little stressed, but nothing out of the ordinary, given the things he had to juggle. He had a lot on his mind, and basically he acted like it – like a guy who had a lot on his mind but was optimistic that it would all go well. He was always an upbeat kind of guy, you know.”
“But then things went south?”
He nodded.
“Do you remember when?”
He widened his eyes, as if he could barely keep from rolling his eyes at her. “Wednesday night. When we first heard that the story we thought was going to showcase Friends of Joshua was actually a witch-hunt hatchet job.”
“And how did you hear about that?”
Marky sat with his jaw clenched for a few seconds. “His ex-girlfriend called him. She still had his number.”
Stump snorted and shifted on me, her feet digging into my lap. She fell back to sleep and began snoring again, but a shade more delicately this time.
“How did she know about it?” Viv asked, pointedly ignoring Stump.
He grimaced. “Look, this place is pretty inbred, if you haven’t noticed. Everyone knows everyone else’s business. Somebody had seen a clip and told her. She wanted to warn CJ, to see if he could talk them into revising the story.”
“Did he? Did he try?”
“Of course he tried. He didn’t want that. He wanted people to know the facts, know the numbers. Maybe even see some of the people behind those numbers.” He stopped and clenched his lips again, shaking his head. I thought he was going to say something else, and he opened his mouth, but then he closed it again.
I was beginning to feel kind of guilty, intruding on this guy’s personal life.
“What about the money? The last we heard, it hadn’t been found.”
Marky shook his head. “They never found it.”
“Do you have any idea how much was there?”
He shrugged and scrubbed his hands through his hair. “No idea. CJ counted it all and then he was going to make the deposit.”
“Did he go straight to the bank?”
“No, he was – he was kind of emotional, you know. Coming out in such a big way, all the crap that had gone on during the week. He was drained, and he said he really wanted to just go home and take a shower, get his head together. I think he was kind of worried there would be more cameras, more questions.”
“So he went home?”
Marky nodded. “He went to his place, and...” He cleared his throat. “And I never saw him again.”
“How did he react to being outed in the news?”
“He freaked out. He had come out to his family just a couple of weeks before, and to that girlfriend. But he had hoped they’d have time to deal with it before it became public knowledge.” He swallowed again and chewed on his lower lip. “He was pretty freaked out, yeah. He just about wore a hole in the carpet, pacing back and forth. He kept—he just kept putting his hands up to his head like – ”
He put his own hands up to his head, just above his ears. “Like this. Like he was trying to...trying to keep it all together in his head. Keep it from all flying apart.” His voice dropped to a whisper toward the end and he let the sentence die out.
For once, Viv seemed to sense that she was treading on very sensitive ground, and acted accordingly. “I’m sorry. I know this has to be very difficult for you. We just need to know about his final days to see if there are any clues to what might have happened. Aside from the obvious conflict he felt about coming out – did he seem worried? Did he mention feeling threatened or unsafe?”
This time it was Viv who got the you’re-not-that-bright look. “He was getting death threats. He was afraid he would have to resign his job at the hospital. He didn’t have a lot of experience letting people down.” Marky stopped and bit his lower lip. He said hoarsely, “Plus he was furious about Friends of Joshua.”
“His fiancée did say he was very sad about the effect this was going to have on Friends of Joshua.”
Marky gave me a steely look. “Ex-fiancee. And believe me, he was livid. I mean, it’s an outrage. For years this entire city has been behind him. He was the golden child. He came from the golden family, had the golden job, had the golden girlfriend. He could do no wrong. And the moment they found out that – oh my God! Some of our good hard-earned money is going to help people who are –gasp!—gay, the whole thing just falls apart. Those people don’t deserve four walls and a roof. Abominations! They can burn in hell! And CJ Hardin can go with them!”
He rose from his chair, his thin frame bowed over as he paced back and forth as he’d just described CJ, agitated.
“Well, you can’t blame them,” Dale said. “I mean, come on. He wasn’t exactly honest with everyone.”
“Of course I can blame them!” Marky spun on his heel and jabbed a finger at Dale. “I can and do blame them! This is their fault! One of those white trash good ol’ boys killed him. Not one – probably an entire group of them. They probably got drunk and ambushed him somewhere. Beat him. Humiliated him. Desecrated his body.”
His voice broke and he dropped to his chair, his head bowed. Then he raised red eyes to Dale, his lips thin. “Is it any wonder he felt the need to be dishonest? This is what honesty can get you.”
We were silent for a moment, and Viv cleared her throat. “I suppose you heard that they’re investigating this as a hate crime. We’ve heard rumors...”
I realized where Viv was going, and I panicked. I could not let Marky hear the rumors about CJ’s body – not when he was so clearly destroyed by what little he did know.
“Oh, my gosh, are you okay?!” I practically shouted, lifting Stump and pretending to study her intensely.
All three looked at me with varying degrees of alarm.
I held Stump by her front paws and peered into her eyes. She glared back at me and grunted. I breathed a deep sigh of relief. “Oh my gosh. I’m sorry. She just...she made a noise and I thought she was choking on something.”
Stump blinked stonily and tried to tug her legs out of my grip. Her back legs dug into my thighs.
“She’s okay,” I said. I looked at Viv and tried to communicate telepathically for her to shut up, but all she did was look a little annoyed.
“Sorry,” I said again. “False alarm. Anyway, as Viv was saying, we’ve heard rumors about the direction the police investigation might be going. Possibly looking at local hate groups, that kind of thing.”
Marky gave a slight nod.
“Have you heard of a group that goes by the initials PDDL, by chance?” I asked. I wasn’t even sure that was what Bobby had said, but it was something to get the conversation off the topic of CJ Hardin’s body.
Marky studied the floor again, his brow furrowed. Then he shook his head. “No, not that I can remember. Is that one of the hate groups the police are investigating?”
“We’re not sure,” I said. “Like I said, we’ve just heard rumors. But it’s a place to start, right?” I desperately wanted to give him some encouraging news. “Do you have any idea what those letters could stand for?”
He shook his head again. “PDDL? No. If I had to guess, I’d say it was some kind of sanctimonious crap. Like, People in Defense of...something. Decency? Decent Living? Something like that. Hate loves to create big beautiful shields made of cast-iron self-righteousness.” His voice dripped with contempt.
I nodded. “That’s good,” I said. As if I had any clue. “That gives us a place to start.”
“Yeah,” he said.
The room fell into awkward silence. Viv and I exchanged a look. It was time for us to go.
“We appreciate you taking the time to talk to us,” Viv said. “We know how difficult this must be for you.”
We stood, and I turned around to see Dale staring slack-jawed at us. I jerked my head for him to get up.
“Oh yeah,” he said. He stood and brushed off the back of his legs. “Well, I guess we’ll just be going then.” He stuck his hand out, then drew it back and stuck it in his pocket.
If Marky noticed the snub, he didn’t acknowledge it. He took the card Viv handed him and promised to call if anything else helpful occurred to him.
Stump looked blearily around the room, and Marky smiled a sad smile and reached out to scratch her gently behind the ears. “You’re a good girl,” he said.
Stump closed her eyes and moaned a little – her ecstasy moan, as I’d come to recognize it – and tilted her head to lick him.
I reached into my purse and took out a pen. I took the card from Viv and wrote on the back. “This is my work number and address,” I said as I handed the card back to him. “Please call if you think of anything.”
We rode in silence for a while. I’m not sure what the other two were thinking, but I was torn. Bobby’s warning, mixed with the knowledge that someone had hated CJ Hardin – by all accounts, a really nice guy – enough to torture him and kill him. Maybe Bobby was right. Maybe I didn’t want to get mixed up in this.
But oh, my gosh. Marky. Poor guy. A brush with death didn’t seem too high a price to make that awful look on his face go way.
“I like him for this,” Dale said. “I mean, I don’t like him. But I like him for this.”
“Why?” I asked, thinking, “Because you’re a big dumb doofus?” Marky liked Stump. He said she was a good girl. Stump had licked him. Clearly he was not our guy.
Plus, he was devastated by CJ’s death.
“I don’t know,” Dale said. “He just seems like the type.”
“Well, we’re going to need a little more than that,” I said. “I don’t think Bobby’s going to arrest him because you say he seems like the type. And what about this PDDL thing?”
“Yeah, what about that? Did you just pull that out of your hat?” Viv asked, eyeing me in the rearview mirror. The car swerved into the right lane.
“Eyes on the road!” I said. “I overheard Bobby talking about it, with that patrolman who pulled us over.”
“What did he say? Did he call them a hate group?”
“No, he just said something like, Did they say anything about PDDL? Something like that.”
Maybe it was just because I kept saying it over and over, but PDDL was starting to sound kind of familiar. Maybe I’d read about it in one of the stories or comments about CJ.
“I think that group was mentioned in some of the articles I was reading last night about CJ Hardin and Hope for Home.”
“I’ll bet that’s their big lead,” Viv said, smacking a bony hand against the steering wheel. “Sloan is trying to shut us out!”
She bent to get her purse out of the floorboard. Horns honked all around us as she zoomed the Caddy into oncoming traffic.
I lunged over the seat and grabbed the steering wheel, tilting us back into our lane. Dale screamed like a little girl.
Viv returned to the wheel like nothing at all had happened. She fished in her purse and tossed her phone to Dale.
“Do a search on PDDL.”
Dale thumbed through Viv’s phone and I realized with burning fury that he already had her password. She probably gave it to him last night at bingo, I thought sourly.
“Is this it?” Dale asked, holding the phone out to Viv.
She leaned over, squinting, and buzzed a FedEx truck. The driver honked and yelled out his little open door at us.
“Viv, pull over up here and look at the phone so we don’t become tonight’s lead story of a ten-car pileup on the Loop.” I pointed to a shopping center at the next intersection.
Viv swung the Caddy into the parking lot, taking up three spaces, and I sat back and let the two of them haggle over what PDDL could stand for.
“I’ll bet it’s something like People in Defense of Decent Living,” Dale said.
“Why would that be a hate group?” Viv asked.
“If my church is branded a hate group, then anyone who wants to promote anything decent is a hate group. Next they’re gonna be calling the Shriner’s in their little go-carts haters of big oil because their cars aren’t big enough or something.”
I decided my best course of action at the moment would be to tune them out. I studied the shop windows near where we parked. A mannequin wearing a black dress caught my eye, and I opened the car door. “Stay with Stump, okay? I’m going to check out this dress.
Dale and Viv kept up their arguing in the front seat.
“Look at that,” I whispered to myself. I stepped close to the window. It was perfect. A black dress with a v-neck, pencil skirt, and ruching straight up the middle. There was a time I would have stopped traffic in that dress.
I frowned and looked down. Those days said their goodbye when I said goodbye to alcohol and hello to eating basically anything I could fit in my mouth. But still, I had lost four pounds. Before Little Ling’s and inevitable water retention. Maybe, if I drank three gallons of water between now and then and took a couple of Midol...
“You should get that for tomorrow night,” Viv said.
I looked up to see her and Dale standing on either side of me. Dale was holding Stump, who did not look particularly thrilled at the experience. He wasn’t doing it right, holding her under her belly like she was a football. When I held her like that, there was a nice wide hip for her to rest on. With Dale, her legs dangled down.
But she was just going to have to deal with it for a moment, because there was a dress. “I know, I should,” I said. “I need a dress. And that is a dress.”
“Seriously?” Dale looked at the dress and looked me up and down. He frowned and cocked his head. “I’m not sure that’s the right dress for you.”
“No?” I asked, fighting the urge to palm the back of his head and slam him into the store window. “What’s the right dress for me?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, something more along the lines of a tunic, you know.” He held his arms wide and made a straight up and down motion. “Like those tunics with the leggings and the ballet flats. I think that would be a good look for you.”
“You sure know a lot about women’s clothes,” Viv said. “Did you learn that working at the convenience store or driving the garbage truck?”
“I learned it from having three sisters,” Dale said.
I stared at the dress and didn’t answer. For one thing, I was afraid that if I opened my mouth I would scream horrible obscenities at Dale, and for another, a tunic with leggings and ballet flats was exactly what I had been planning on.
But this dress...it looked so soft and a little bit shimmery. It looked pretty. It had been a long time since I’d felt pretty. I was nervous about the banquet, and it would certainly improve my outlook if I could feel like I looked good. This dress with some black heels. I could maybe get a little mojo back with that.
“I’m trying it on.” I left them standing on the sidewalk.
It seemed a bit silly to pray that they had my size, but I did and they did. It seemed even sillier to pray that I would look good in it, but one prayer had already been answered so I figured I could possibly be in the flow of God’s grace and should take advantage of it.
Through the louvered dressing room doors, I could hear Viv and Dale arguing about the PDDL, and Dale trying to flirt with the sales clerk. I stripped off and tugged the dress over my head, almost afraid to open my eyes. I said one more quick prayer.
I faced the mirror. It was...well, it wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t good. The good part about having a somewhat plus-sized bottom is, it’s usually accompanied with enough boobage to fill out a v-neck dress nicely. The bad part was that the rest of it was fairly well filled, too. The ruching created little pockets all the way up my front that appeared to be filled with fat. I poked at a bulge. It sprang back with enthusiasm. I tugged the dress away from my front, and it snapped instantly back and hugged every curve and unsightly bulge.
I sighed and swallowed the lump of disappointed in my throat. I guess I could see if they had any tunics...
“How is it?” Dale asked through the door. “Do you want me to bring you another size?”
I saw red and flames shot out of my eyeballs. Well, okay, not actual flames, imaginary flames that incinerated Dale into a tiny smoking pile of ash.
“It’s great!” I found myself saying. “It looks frigging fabulous!”
“Really?” Viv said. I wasn’t thrilled with the somewhat disbelieving tone of her voice, either. “Let’s see.”
I ripped the dress over my head so fast I could have given myself a friction burn. “Sorry. I already took it off.”
I tugged my jeans and t-shirt on and hopped out of the dressing room to pull on my shoes. “I’ll take it,” I said brightly to the clerk. I beamed and even did a little happy dance at the counter.
Viv frowned at me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m, you know, being giddy. Because I got a pretty new dress.”
From the corner of my eye I saw a display of Smaxx “shapewear”. The model on the cover of the package had an actual six-pack, but still...maybe a little shapewear really could help the dress fit better.
I lifted my hand to reach for the package, then thought of Dale and stopped. I plastered my grin back on. “It looks great,” I announced to the clerk. “Fabulous. I’m so excited now about the banquet!”
“That’s great,” the clerk murmured. “Debit or credit?”
I grabbed the bag and followed Viv and Dale out the door, my grin still firmly in place. Before I reached the door I turned back and whispered to the clerk, “What time do you close?”
“Nine o’clock,” she whispered back.
“You never told me you had three sisters,” Viv said when we got back into the car. “Do they live here?”
“I don’t know,” Dale said. He looked out the window and was quiet for a second. “They stopped talking to me a long time ago.”
I thought I might have some idea why they stopped talking to him, but I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for Dale. He looked sad.
I had no idea what it would be like to have siblings. Growing up it had just been me and Mom, with my G-Ma, her mother, thrown in from time to time. Every once in a while a guy would come along and Mom would think he was the answer to all our prayers, but more often than not he’d be my own personal nightmare. What I saw as defending myself from unwanted advances got me labeled a defiant troublemaker, and I got shipped off to stay with G-Ma in Lubbock. That was fine by me. G-Ma generally kept me fed and although she had plenty of people coming and going from the little strip motel she owned on the old highway, she made sure they kept their hands to themselves where I was concerned.
As far as I knew, I had been an only child, but that was hard to verify if you were not 100 percent sure who your father is. Charles Pointer, the man I had been told was my father, had two kids a few years younger than me. I had never had the courage to get confirmation on my paternity. If I’d been able to show up at his door and say with confidence, “Surprise! It’s a girl! And you’re gonna be so proud. I’m a good person who’s never done anything rotten like, say, get three DUIs or steal from her friends!” maybe I could have. But I wasn’t. I had my hands full working on becoming a person who could look herself in the eye. I wasn’t ready to look anyone else in the eye just yet.
“This has got to be it,” Dale said, and I realized it was the third time he’d said it. “They’re having an emergency meeting in about twenty minutes. Public is invited.”
We were back in the car and I was busy trying not to feel sick over the look on Tony’s face when he saw my unsightly bulges all swathed and on display in shiny black fabric.
Viv looked at the phone Dale was holding out. “Yeah, I’ll bet that’s our group,” Viv said.
I agreed that had to be it because it was the only PDDL we could find. We still didn’t know what the letters stood for, but I was inclined to lean toward Dale’s theory – People in Defense of Decent Living, or something along those lines. I wasn’t going to tell him that, of course. It was not because I was resentful or irritated or rejoicing in wrongdoing – nothing like that. He and Viv were just too busy being chum-chums to let me get a word in edgewise.
He read the address to Viv, and I realized it was not too far from G-Ma’s motel. “I know that area,” I said. There were a lot of dive bars. “Let’s drop Stump off at G-Ma’s so I don’t have to lug her around.”
Stump gave me a look, and I questioned Dale’s earlier theory that she didn’t know what I was saying. She probably just picked up the two words – Stump, which she recognized as herself, and G-Ma, which she recognized as a grumpy old lady who didn’t like her. Just in case, I said, “I mean, it might get rough, and I love Stump too much to put her in a situation that might be unsafe.”
She hmmphed and curled up on the seat by the window, giving me the stink eye.
G-Ma was in the front office and was not thrilled with the idea of babysitting. “Last time I tried to keep her she shredded my bathmat and screamed so loud someone called animal control on me. They thought I was torturing her.”
Stump had rather severe separation anxiety issues, which was why she was always with me or Frank. I’d actually had animal control called on me once, too. I’d had to stage a fake abandonment and let the animal control officer stand on a bucket outside my bathroom window and spy on Stump going through one of her unholy, ear-bleeding frenzies before she believed me when I said I treated my dog humanely. I was fairly sure Stump was the reason our last neighbors had moved.
“She only gets like that when she’s alone,” I said. “She won’t be alone. You’ll be with her.”
“What if I rent a room and have to show someone the way?”
I looked out the window on the right side of the reception area, then the left. The Executive Inn had twenty rooms, and I could see all of the doors from the office in the center of the building. I knew from years of working with G-Ma that it took more than a simple act of customer service to get her off her stool, anyway, but I said, “You can take her with you. Just carry her. She’s not that heavy.”
“What if I have to go to the bathroom?”
“Again, she can go with.”
“This is an unhealthy relationship you and this dog have going, here,” G-Ma said.
“Could be true,” I said. “But still one of the healthiest I’ve ever had.”
She frowned at me, but I knew I’d won this round. I dumped Stump into her lap and backed out the door as quick as I could. “I’ll be back in half an hour!” Rarely had a promise been based on less information, but I got out while I could.
I wasn’t sure which bar we were going to, but a quick drive down from the motel confirmed that we would, in fact, be going to a bar. There were four or five on that stretch of road, and I used to sneak in sometimes when I was staying with G-Ma, to one in particular owned by a rotund man named Mac with bushy white eyebrows and beard. He looked like Santa Claus’s black sheep cousin. I would order a Jack and Coke, all nonchalant like I wasn’t fifteen years old, and Mac would give me an eye roll, along with a plain Coke with a cherry in it. He’d tolerate me for a while if the place wasn’t busy and the crowd didn’t look too rough, but he always growled at me to leave after very long. I could have gotten him into a lot of trouble if the cops had showed up and I had been sitting on his bar stool. On the other hand, he also somewhat seemed to like having me there.
If I got lucky enough and Mac’s son was filling in for him, he’d slip a tiny bit of something into my Coke that made my eyes blur a little. That didn’t happen often, just enough to make me feel daring and grownup.
The PDDL meeting wasn’t at Mac’s old place, but across the highway in a bar that used to be called The Three Kings, and had at one time ambitiously tried to look like a castle. It was a flat roofed, one-story building with round turret towers on the two front corners. A couple of the little notches in the towers were getting crumbly but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. Now it was simply called “The Hangout.”
Viv parked the Caddy and we all crawled out. I was struck, suddenly, by the weirdness of being at a bar. It was like going to the movies in the middle of the day and then coming out to blinding afternoon sun. A disoriented sense of being jerked out of balance hung over me as I followed Viv and Dale across the parking lot marked with potholes. There was a time when this kind of place was my normal hangout, and I had barely noticed the potholes, the smell of old grease from the dumpster, and the dilapidated cars with loose bumpers and bald tires. The fact that these things got my attention now showed me just how much my life had changed over the past year or so.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but I thought...good, maybe. Maybe I felt good. Maybe I felt proud of myself. It was as if I’d been plodding along with my head down for a long time, and then I looked over my shoulder and realized there was a bit of space between me and where I’d been. I figured that once the surprise wore off, I was going to be really proud of myself.
The inside was dim and a little smoky, but not too bad. A couple of hangdog looking guys glanced up from the bar when we came in, but otherwise we went unnoticed.
Just like that, it was back – the urge to drink. I’d done really, really well. It had been a long time since I’d gotten so drunk I’d embarrassed myself. Of course, I’d done lot of things sober that embarrassed me, too, but that was just the way it was.
A little whisper in my head suggested that, perhaps, I had gotten enough balance that I could handle it all now.
Les had warned me that this day would come. Someday I would feel like it would be okay to just have a little slip, and I could either shut that voice down as soon as it started, or I could start the slow slide back down to rock bottom and have to crawl all the way back out again.
Viv stood looking around, her nose in the air. From all the stories she’d told me, this kind of place wasn’t exactly foreign to her, either, but you’d never know it to look at her now, in $600 shoes and carrying a handbag that cost at least triple that – or from her imperious attitude.
I lifted my nose and tried to mimic her expression, but I didn’t feel like I was pulling it off very well. I looked at her, wondering if the urge to loosen things up a little with a Jack and Coke was as strong in her as it was in me.
A waitress in cut-off shorts and a tank top walked by carrying an empty drinks tray and a white dishtowel. “You here for PDDL?” she asked.
I cast a glance at Dale, but he was looking to me to answer. I gave her a quick nod. We were either about to find our hate group, or we were going to be initiated into some violent biker gang.
The waitress jerked her head toward a doorway on the other end of the long wooden bar. “Back room,” she said.
I followed Viv back, feeling Dale hovering entirely too closely at my back. The back room was as dim as the front, and the paneled walls were bare except for a couple of pretty posters of prairie grass and blue sky.
There were two rows of folding chairs and a thin podium, but the room was too small to need a microphone and speakers. A couple of rough looking men with arms crossed over their chests turned in their seats and stared at us as we came in. They didn’t look happy.
Before I was even comfortable in my seat, a man in a black button down shirt and denim vest got up to the podium and cleared his throat. “Ummm, I know people are still kind of getting situated, but I’m going to go ahead and get started.” He held a small stack of index cards in his hand, and he reached up and scratched his scalp with them. “Look, first I want to thank Bull for letting us use this room. Having a safe place to meet like this, to discuss things openly without having to censor ourselves, well, that’s invaluable. It seems that our way of thinking is growing more unpopular by the day, and this safe haven just becomes more and more precious to me.”
Some of the men turned and nodded toward a skinny guy with slicked-back black hair, who nodded solemnly back. I thought Bull seemed like a strange nickname for such a thin guy, but who was I to judge? My mom had named me after her favorite menthol cigarette.
“I also want to thank our visitors for coming. It’s a fact that when things happen – newsworthy things like what happened last week – it attracts attention. And although I’m sorry it takes such violence to get attention, I believe that, ultimately, it’s worth it. Our way of life, the very ground we’re standing on here, is at stake. Make no mistake.”
With that he stopped, scratched his head again, and cleared his throat. “I know we all want to discuss the events of this past week, because from talking to a few of you, I know there’s a great deal of ill feeling about the way things were handled. Some of you think the steps taken were necessary. Others of you think it went too far.”
I felt my eyes bug out and it took everything I had not to look at Viv. She pressed her knee against mine and I knew she was thinking the same thing. This was it! I almost smiled, thinking about shoving this bit of crime-solving information under Bobby’s nose.
“I understand all that,” the speaker went on. “I can actually relate to both sides. I really can. And we can stand here and hash things out for the next hour or so. We can play coulda-shoulda-woulda all day long. But the truth is, what’s done is done. It can’t be undone. No amount of finger-pointing and blaming is going to turn back the clock. So all I can say now is, we need to look at where we are. It’s undeniable that we have the attention of the people. We have a platform now that didn’t exist last week.”
Someone from the audience murmured agreement, and a couple shifted in their seats.
“Now is the time,” the speaker went on. “It’s all over the internet. I’ve seen stories all over the Midwest. I’m getting calls from affiliates in South Dakota, Colorado, Kansas. You name it. Now is the time to get this issue settled, once and for all.”
A couple more noises from the audience, and I felt my heart start to pound. Good grief, what were they planning next?
I glanced at Viv, and she slid a slit-eyed gaze over toward me. I knew she was thinking what I was thinking. Wouldn’t it chap Bobby’s hide when we not only handed him a killer, but we gave him information that helped him prevent some big issue-settling epic event?
I bit the inside of my lip, thinking of the humble pie Viv would make piping hot fresh just for him. Maybe I could wear a little French maid apron to serve it to him.
I was so caught up in my fantasy that I got a little lost in the conversation.
One of the bigger guys, with a gimme tractor cap and an impressive belly spilling over the waist of his Wranglers, raised a hand and interrupted.
“The problem is, the kind of destruction we saw last week doesn’t help any of us. In fact, it hurts all the efforts in South Dakota, Colorado, Kansas and you name it,” he said, repeating the speaker’s own words back to him. “It draws the attention away from the real issue. When the violence escalates like that, I think it makes everyone more sympathetic to our enemies, and less sympathetic to our cause.”
Viv leaned over and whispered to me. “And there’s the guy we’re going to lean on first.”
I nodded slightly. Clearly, he was the weak link, not as committed to the cause and more likely to speak out of a guilty conscience. It took everything I had not to rub my palms together.
“It reduces us all to the level of a bunch of closed-minded lunatics. Unreasonable fanatics. Nobody in their right mind wants to be associated with that kind of group, whether we are right nor not. I think we need to come out and denounce the attack. Officially.”
A couple of the men made affirmative noises, but I saw more shaking their heads. The speaker tightened his mouth and let the group talk among themselves for a moment, but it was clear an argument was about to erupt.
He put his hands out and shushed them. “Now, Chuck, I understand how you feel. But I think we can tread this line a little more carefully and get some mileage out of it.”
A younger guy with a thin ponytail stood, his shoulders rigid. “I don’t denounce it. I’m happy with what happened.” He turned to Chuck. “Do you have any idea how many prairie dogs were saved in that one act?
I frowned. I wasn’t too up on my gay culture, but I’d never heard “prairie dog” used as a euphemism for anything.
“For how long?” Chuck shot back, his voice rising. “You think they won’t fix that damned machine? Hell, their insurance adjuster is already there and it’s being repaired as we speak. All that fool did was prove we’re a bunch of crazies and delay things by one week. At best.”
Viv and I looked at each other. I saw from her expression that realization was dawning on her at the same time it did me.
“Well, crud,” she said. She sighed and stood.
“No, don’t leave,” the speaker said when he saw her. He motioned for the crowd to shush again. “Don’t go, it’s not always like this, I promise. Guys, please.”
“No, it’s not that,” Viv said. I stood beside her. “It’s just that...we were under the impression that this was a different kind of group. So you’re, what? Defending the prairie dog habitat?”
Dale looked slack-jawed between Viv and the group.
“Of course,” Bull said. He motioned to the posters on the wall, which I now noticed were not just pictures of prairie and blue sky, but of prairie dogs, prairie and blue sky. The one behind me featured a close-up of one standing, with his paws pressed together.
“The city is trying to create a buffer zone” – his tone became mocking – “around the new soccer fields on the south side of town. The trouble is, that buffer zone gets bigger and bigger every year, and they signed an agreement four years ago that that land would be set aside for the habitat and remain that way into perpetuity. Now they’re trying to renege on that deal because this town needs more soccer fields lying idle six days a week.”
I remembered the headline I’d read about the extermination equipment being vandalized over the weekend.
I also remembered Bobby, talking low but loud enough for me to overhear. “They didn’t say anything about the PDDL, did they?”
The rat.
Viv nodded at Bull. “Well, that sounds like a very worthy cause.” Then, probably because everyone was staring at us and seemed a bit irritated that we’d interrupted their very important meeting, she said, “Do you take monetary contributions?”
The speaker jumped to attention, leaning back to fish a plastic jug out from behind the podium. It was in the shape of a prairie dog. “We certainly do,” he said, shoving the thing at Viv. “Anything is appreciated. Anything at all.”
The prairie dog had a slit in the top of his head, and his paws were placed together, like the one on the poster.
“What, is he begging not to be exterminated?” I asked, stunned into saying exactly what I was thinking.
“No, they do that,” ponytail guy said. “They actually stand like that every morning and every evening and face the sun. Their eyes closed and their paws together like that.” He gave me a meaningful look. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?”
I nodded that indeed it did, but I wasn’t sure at the moment what to think, aside from ways to make Bobby pay.
Dale, ever slow on the uptake, continued to stare slack-jawed at the scene unfolding before him. Then he said, “Wait. This isn’t one of those anti-gay groups?”
The room fell instantly silent. Dale waited for an answer.
The guy with the ponytail gave him a steely look. “I should think not,” he said stiffly. “Seeing as how I’m gay.”
I edged toward the door, but didn’t get far before Bull said, “Yeah, he’s gay. So am I.” He straightened from where he leaned against the wall and took a step toward us. He nodded toward Chuck, the biggest guy in the room. “So is my partner.”
“We need to go,” Viv said. “Not because you’re gay, I mean. We just need to go because...”
But apparently her normally fast thinking wasn’t working so fast at the moment. She looked desperately at me.
“We have to...run!”
I turned and ran, pushing one poor guy out of my way as I neared the outer door.
Viv wasn’t far behind me, and she clicked her car remote to unlock the doors as we hopped over potholes. I threw myself into the front seat and slammed the door behind me.
I looked into the side mirror. Where was Dale?
Viv turned the key in the ignition. “Where is that idiot?”
“Leave him!” I cried, picturing the blood-thirsty crowd coming after us in a frenzy.
He came jogging out, though, a second later. He was alone.
He jumped into the backseat and Viv floored the Caddy. It scraped the bottom as she hit the street, but if we’d done damage, she would just have to find it later.
“Are you two crazy?” Dale grumbled from the back seat. “You just left me there!”
“If you’d kept your mouth shut, we wouldn’t have had to run,” I said.
“Well, you’re the one who told us this was a hate group.”
I looked at Viv. “Bobby,” I said.
“We’re going to have to make him pay for this one,” Viv said. She set her chin in that way I’d come to recognize as a sign of impending disaster. She gunned it and we were almost back to the Loop before I remembered Stump.
“Wait!” I said. “We have to go back for Stump.”
Viv muttered a bad word and swung the Caddy in a wide arc in the middle of the road, bouncing over the grassy median.
As we got close to The Hangout, I saw a group of people standing in the parking lot, looking around.
“Oh no! I think they’re looking for us.” I laid down on the seat.
“Crap!” Viv said. She laid on top of me, one hand holding the wheel.
As we sped by The Hangout, they must have seen a driverless car, with a guy in the back seat screaming like a little girl.